Greg Abbott vs. the Child Predators of Williamson County
On Sunday, Eric Dexheimer at the Austin American-Statesman looked at Greg Abbotts prosecution of online child predators and found something peculiar. Abbott has long touted his efforts against child predators, and why wouldnt he? Its obviously very important work, and it has the added bonus of being very politically popular. But when Dexheimer studied the number of people the AGs office has prosecuted for attempting to solicit minors, he found that since the start of 2012, more than two-thirds of the offices busts happened in Williamson County, just north of Austin.
Three law enforcement agencies in Texas have been designated Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forcesthe Houston and Dallas police departments have their own, which operate primarily in their respective metropolitan areas. Abbotts AG office has responsibility for most of the rest of the state, some 134 counties. Yet the vast majority of cases Abbott prosecutes take place in the Austin metropolitan areaand one county in particular. Almost six out of 10 of all cases over the past decade, Dexheimer reports, have been brought in a tight geographic circle around Austin.
In addition to being an extraordinarily narrow concentration of state resources, one result is that over the past three years, three-quarters of the defendants accused by Abbotts office of stalking children online have been from the Austin metropolitan area, in effect making his office more a local police unit than state agency.
There are a couple of reasons the Attorney Generals office might prefer to use Williamson County to arrange busts. Theres the jurisdictions tough-on-crime reputation, and an easy relationship with local police departments. Theres also the fact that its a short drive from the officecoordinating a bust in El Paso, of course, would require a much greater expense of both time and money for Abbotts officers.
But it doesnt seem like an ideal use of resources, as a deterrent or a general policy. We may hope that the herd of child predators in Round Rock has been thinned significantly, but what about cities far from the attorney generals task force headquarters, where prospective sex offenders know they are significantly less likely to get caught if they look for prey in Uvalde and not Leander?
While there is nothing improper about the units limited focus, it raises questions about the agencys commitment to pursue offenders statewide. A listing of the offices child pornography investigations, by comparison, shows those cases are dotted throughout the state.
More at
http://www.texasobserver.org/greg-abbott-vs-child-predators-williamson-county/ .